Movie Review - 'Bhopal: A Prayer For Rain'

Genre: Historical Drama

Rating: **

Cast: Martin Sheen, Kal Penn, Rajpal Yadav, Mischa Barton, Joy Sengupta, Manoj Joshi

Director: Ravi Kumar

Language: English

The Bhopal gas tragedy deserved better. It was a story that needed to be told, but this dramatisation was not equipped to handle the material. Oscillating between being an arty recreation and a historic retelling, the film stumbles right from the set-up of the rickshaw meandering through the streets of Bhopal with an overweight passenger.

The producers kid you not when they caution that some parts have been ‘dramatised’ for effect. Considering it was almost six years in the making, one even wonders why it all went wrong.

Retracing the lead-up to one of the worst human tragedies, where thousands perished due to a methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leak in the Union Carbide factory, the film attempts to establish its gamut of characters — impoverished factory workers, Indian managers, journalists, American top brass — but runs through them like an amateurish exercise.

Martin Sheen as Warren Anderson attempts to humanise the callous management, but the dichotomy fails to make sense ultimately. Additionally, one wonders why he continues addressing his Indian staff in English, considering they never attempt to translate or make it a two-way communication. Meanwhile, Penn’s portrayal of Motwani, the journalist who attempts to warn the slum dwellers of the impending danger, is a hammy, accent-laced degeneration into stereotypes. The only bit where you sit up straight and feel for the tragedy is when the leak is discovered, dealt with and its aftermath. Everything else in between is forgettable.

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